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Pickled Pork. It just sounds hardcore - and almost oxymoronic. It took me long enough to get used to pickled anything other than cucumbers. But, this is just another way that pork takes on a new flavor as it is being preserved. This is definitely a Southern thing, and the pickled pork the Grub Blogger made is Cajun style, taken directly from Chuck Taggart’s awesome site, The Gumbo Pages. This recipe sounded so good, I barely searched elsewhere, and since pickling pork is not something I learned in cooking school or can relate to other experiences, I figured I had better follow a master and give full credit. Pickled pork is used as a flavoring agent in soup and stews (especially beans - see Red Beans and Rice Method) and is sold in just about every supermarket in New Orleans. Read more…
Cajun / Creole, Charcuterie, Pickled Pork, Porcine Revolution
So, I’m finally making sausage, I thought to myself as my ground pork mixture was (now properly) easing its way into the natural hog casing I had soaked and slipped onto the nozzle of the stuffer, trying to stifle the obvious twelve-year old jokes that were coming to mind. After making sure I could grind my own pork and season it correct with some breakfast sausage and Mexican chorizo, I went ahead and ordered my stuffer from The Sausage Maker, Inc. Again, the Grub Blogger went to Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing as his guide, and started with their basic garlic sausage recipe as a base. I wanted to try the simplest sausage they had for the first time, but added a little nutmeg, all spice and white pepper to their fresh garlic, kosher salt and black pepper. Read more…
Charcuterie, Porcine Revolution, Sausage
After finding success with breakfast sausage, the Grub Blogger continued his march through Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by making Mexican chorizo. At this point I still hadn’t picked up a sausage stuffer, as I wanted to make sure I could get the grinding down first. As soon as I tasted my homemade chorizo, I went online and ordered a stuffer. The freshness and intensity of spices was better than any fresh chorizo I had eaten, and using the small die on the grinder made sure there were no large pieces of fat like in some of the stuff I had bought in Mexican markets. For the primer on my experience with basic sausage making, check out my post on Breakfast Sausage Patties. Read more…
Charcuterie, Mexican, Porcine Revolution, Sausage
A major part of the Porcine Revolution for the Grub Blogger has been the desire to make his own, homemade sausage. Just as with bacon, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing was the key to my getting my hands porky. After getting a Kitchen Aid for Christmas and the meat grinding attachment for Valentine’s Day (the Grub Blogger found the right lady), all systems were go. Charcuterie has a recipe for a breakfast sausage that I started with because it doesn’t involve stuffing the meat into casing. I wanted to make sure I nailed the basics before buying more equipment. I figured on mastering this recipe and the one for Mexican chorizo (which is generally used loose) first. Sausage making takes some preparation, so make sure you are not really hungry and have time on your hands. Read more…
Breakfast, Charcuterie, Porcine Revolution, Sausage
I first came across feijoada at cooking school, assisting one of the chef-instructors with a Food of the World event at the Winter Garden in downtown Manhattan. I wasn’t involved in the cooking at all, just helping to serve it up at the fair under the (fake) palms trees. As with many of my introductions to great grub, I was not impresssed with the batch of black bean stew we were dishing out, but I could tell that there was something great behind the pedestrian attempt. Feijoada roughly tranlates as “bean stew”, and is the most famous dish from Brazil. This stew has a very high rating in the Porcine Revolution, using much of the pig to flavor and tenderize the simple black beans. This dish smells so good when it is cooking, you should make sure you have snacks around to munch on so you don’t slowly eat all the feijoada as it is being cooked. Read more…
Beans, Brazil, Porcine Revolution
For this porky treat I give thanks to the Home Sick Texan, whose great blog inspired my Yankee attempt at a Texas classic. The only experience I really had with refried was some sorry attempts at New York “Tex-Mex” joints, and some canned versions that I would heat up and eat with an egg. Once I made my own batch, I had the revelation I often have with food , where I see why people love a dish when it is done with care and thought. With fresh beans and attention to technique and ingredients, these beans had none of the pasty, almost chalky flavor I had associated with refried beans.
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Beans, Porcine Revolution, Refried Beans
Manteca, or lard, is another by product of my homemade bacon. When you done frying up your bacon, you should save the drippings left over in the pan in a small jar. Same goes for when you make chicharones or anything else that renders fat from a pig. This pork fat can be stored at room temperature, and used as a cooking fat that adds flavor like no canola oil ever can. I keep some in my pantry in a small jar that used to hold jam. When I asked a friend of mine from New Orleans how he makes red beans and rice, he told me that first you fry up a pan of bacon after coming home from a night of drinking, eat it up with your friends, and go to sleep. Then, start cooking your aromatics in the bacon grease the next morning. This is a perfect example of why the Grub Blogger loves New Orleans cooking, and why they don’t need a Porcine Revolution, because they have been doing it for years.
This post is part of the Porcine Revolution.
Porcine Revolution
Posole is right there in the front ranks of the Porcine Revolution. Caldo gallego is great – really great – but it has some beef and chicken. Posole goes straight to the essence of pork, mostly by the use of pig’s feet, whose gelatinous loveliness gives this stew its rich, deep pork flavor without the thickness that comes from the salt pork used in caldo gallego. Posole is a Mexican stew, that comes in red, white and green (like their flag). I like the red version, so that is what I have made here. Posole is a fixture on weekend menus at real deal Mexican restaurants. I used to enjoy it at the Red Hook Ballfields, before that scene died out. I give a big shout out to nathanscomida.blogspot.com. Nathan’s got a good thing going on over there with detailed photos and recipes from the heart, one of which inspired my posole rojo. I started off with an assortment of the most inexpensive cuts of pork from the local supermarket.
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Mexican, Porcine Revolution, Posole
I fell in love with the (mostly pork action) food scene at the soccer fields after seeing a short video on some webpage, going down to Red Hook pretty much every weekend to chow down on the Mexican, Central American and Colombian grub dished up by the vendors who lined the outskirts of a soccer field. The soccer fields have been documented very well by J. Slab on the Porkchop Express, and I suggest you check out his site for the full run down. The Grub Blogger will say that he was part of the initial rush of folk who likely lead to the evisceration of this great scene, which was reduced to trucks vending out grub from the street adjacent to where the real action used to be. There is definitely a feeling of guilt for having told everyone who would listen about this special scene, and then watching as it got overwhelmed, and eventually on to the radar of the health department and food licensing agency of the City of New York. Still, I had many good times there, and was introduced the to the huarache, a sort of super-taco made from fresh masa and filled with whatever was on the griddle. Read more…
Mexican, NYC Food Places, Porcine Revolution
Caldo Gallego (basically, Galician Stew) is a childhood favorite of the Grub Blogger. If I weren’t eating at home or at a Chinese restaurant, I was chowing down at La Tacita de Oro on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They specialized in comida china-criolla. Everyone who worked there was Chinese, but you ordered in English, and they yelled into a microphone down to the basement kitchen in Spanish. A totally normal place for me as a kid, but pretty wild thinking back on it. Apparently, there had been a steady stream of Chinese immigrants to Cuba over the years, and many fled Fidel’s revolution for the States to continue their journey as entrepreneurial migrants. La Tacita had two sides to their menu. One with classic, Chinese fare and the other with Cuban food. Every once in a while they would have caldo gallego as a special, and I loved it. Ate it right up through high school, until, sadly, they went out of business. The broth was slight thick, with small pieces of some sort of pork, delicious bits of chorizo, potatoes, a few white beans and something green. Read more…
Caldo Gallego, Porcine Revolution, Salt Pork
